To define
literature as an art and to examine three central genres of
literary art (fiction (short fiction), poetry, and drama); to see how
those genres are technically and stylistically distinct from one
another, yet share many of the same tools and effects

To realize
that literature
can be a catalyst for the inner development of readers, that it can
create an aesthetically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually,
intellectually expansive experience that can be meaningful and
satisfying (depending on what you read)

To excavate,
cultivate,
nurture, and express our individual responses to literature; to explore
why we have the individual, personal responses we do, and to learn to
value those responses as the WHOLE POINT of reading literature

To arrive at
an appreciation
for what reading literature has to offer our entertainment-saturated
leisure culture—there’s solitude, slowness, depth, subtlety, sublimity
and imagination as an alternative to the super-speeded, superficial,
super-obvious, super-commercial, and super-empty junk culture that we
all know and love

How
do you define literature?Read the following literary
work, a short story by Alice Walker, and use it, as well as other works
of literature you remember, as a springboard to help you formulate your
own list of ideas towards a “definition of literature.” If its purpose
seems something other than “to entertain,” why do you think it
exists? What’s the point or the value of writing something like
this?

“The Flowers” by
Alice WalkerThe
Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. 6th ed. Ed. Michael
Meyer. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003. 73-74. It seemed to Myop as
she skipped lightly from hen house to pigpen to smokehouse that the
days had never been as beautiful as these. The air held a keenness that
made her nose twitch. The harvesting of the corn and cotton, peanuts
and squash, made each day a golden surprise that caused excited little
tremors to run up her jaws.
Myop carried a short, knobby stick. She struck out
at random at chickens she liked, and worked out the beat of a song on
the fence around the pigpen. She felt light and good in the warm sun.
She was ten, and nothing existed for her but her song, the stick
clutched in her dark brown hand, and the tat-de-ta-ta-ta of
accompaniment.
Turning her back on the rusty boards of her family's
sharecropper cabin, Myop walked along the fence till it ran into the
stream made by the spring. Around the spring, where the family got
drinking water, silver ferns and wildflowers grew. Along the shallow
banks pigs rooted. Myop watched the tiny white bubbles disrupt the thin
black scale of soil and the water that silently rose and slid away down
the stream.
She had explored the woods behind the house many
times. Often, in late autumn, her mother took her to gather nuts among
the fallen leaves. Today she made her own path, bouncing this way and
that way, vaguely keeping an eye out for snakes. She found, in addition
to various common but pretty ferns and leaves, an armful of strange
blue flowers with velvety ridges and a sweet suds bush full of the
brown, fragrant buds.
By twelve o'clock, her arms laden with sprigs of her
findings, she was a mile or more from home. She had often been as far
before, but the strangeness of the land made it not as pleasant as her
usual haunts. It seemed gloomy in the little cove in which she found
herself. The air was damp, the silence close and deep.
Myop began to circle back to the house, back to the
peacefulness of the morning. It was then she stepped smack into his
eyes. Her heel became lodged in the broken ridge between brow and nose,
and she reached down quickly, unafraid, to free herself. It was only
when she saw his naked grin that she gave a little yelp of surprise.
He had been a tall man. From feet to neck covered a
long space. His head lay beside him. When she pushed back the leaves
and layers of earth and debris Myop saw that he'd had large white
teeth, all of them cracked or broken, long fingers, and very big bones.
All his clothes had rotted away except some threads of blue denim from
his overalls. The buckles of the overall had turned green.
Myop gazed around the spot with interest. Very near
where she'd stepped into the head was a wild pink rose. As she picked
it to add to her bundle she noticed a raised mound, a ring, around the
rose's root. It was the rotted remains of a noose, a bit of shredding
plowline, now blending benignly into the soil. Around an overhanging
limb of a great spreading oak clung another piece. Frayed, rotted,
bleached, and frazzled—barely there—but spinning restlessly in the
breeze. Myop laid down her flowers.
And the summer was over.

Even if you don’t know the purpose yet, you can observe the
effects. The story seems to:

Arrest your attention, and while
you’re reading the actual world goes away. Why it’s arresting
your attention is not something you really need to consider unless
someone like me asks you to; this is just a natural function of
reading. Once you realize the story has gotten your attention,
you can ask: Does it entertain you? How so? How not
so? (What do we even mean by “entertainment”?) Does it seem to be
trying to do something other than or in addition to entertainment?
What’s the difference between art and entertainment?

Create an inward experience by creating
vivid pictures in your imagination. You may know the story
isn’t “real,” but you can imagine it being real; if the story really
grabs you, it becomes possible to bring everything to life inside your
imagination—the characters, the setting, the action all spring into a
kind of existence, and there’s a kind of experience happening
internally.

Get you to think about your own
experiences, in this case that experience of “growing up.”
You might remember a time when you were shocked to find out about one
or another of the horrible things that go on in the world that you are
not aware of as a child. There are certain big themes that
literature traditionally tackles, and that transition from childhood to
adulthood is one of them. Our movement from the state of
blissfully ignorant innocence to an misery-filled, all-too-knowing
experience goes way back to our earliest stories; even the bible tells
that story in the first few chapters of Genesis.

What do your notes
toward a “definition of literature” look like? How do they
compare to mine? You can find out by reading the online file: "Fundamental Questions about
Literature" at our course website.

DISCUSSION

What are some
literary works you remember reading, either for school or for
pleasure? What did you like or dislike about it?

What’s the
difference between reading for pleasure and reading for practical
purposes? Do you appreciate a good set of instructions as much as
you appreciate a good short story? What are your different
expectations for each kind of writing?

What’s your
best guess at why there aren’t more people today reading for
pleasure? What’s competing with reading? Is reading on the
way out? If it did go, what would be lost?

WRITING ACTIVITY

Individually,
write a paragraph or two about one of your favorite books from
childhood. (If you consider your childhood to be last semester,
that’s okay—we can be flexible!) What do you most remember about
this book? Why do you think you especially remember these
particular things? What do you think about this book now?
Even though you remember it, does it strike you as worth remembering,
or would it be fine if you forgot it?

In small
groups, share your memories and your reflections. Obviously, you
can edit out anything you’re uncomfortable sharing with your
classmates… Then compile a list that assembles these
reflections—make sure everyone in your group contributes. Were
there any common threads that linked your experiences, such as similar
reasons for finding the book memorable or not memorable, valuable or
not valuable? How can you use this awareness to help you
formulate some ideas toward a definition of literature?

Each group
present these experiences the rest of the class.

INFORMAL WRITING ASSIGNMENT: DUE JAN. 19Directions: write in response
to the following (please type; you can single-space):

What would
make reading fiction or poetry, or watching plays and films, a
worthwhile experience for you personally, and what would motivate you
to participate in discussions in class? What would inhibit you
from participating in discussions in class?